Template:M summ Equity Derivatives 12.8

Section 12.8(a) “Cancellation Amount”

Cancellation Amount is a beast of a definition. But when you boil it down, it’s pretty straightforward. It applies when terminating a Transaction following an Extraordinary Event or an Additional Disruption Event. Importantly, by dint of Section 12.8(e), the Determining Party may pass through hedge breakage costs and losses.

Geopolitical events

Now, what gains or losses might the Determining Party incur in replacing the material terms of the Transaction if, due to wars, sanctions and other miscellaneous geopolitical hanky-panky, a market gets totally shut down? If, for example, the outside world has imposed economic sanctions on the jurisdiction in which your Shares trade (as, at the time of writing, seems far possible for Russia), of if the Shares’ jurisdiction itself imposes sanctions on money coming in from or going out to the outside world (as did Greece, for a brief moment, in 2015)?

Well, worst case, the holder of a long swap position might get a doughnut. The holder of a short position could, conceivably, lose even more, were the value of affected Shares to spike during the sanctions, but that seems practically unlikely: the nature of economic sanctions and geopolitical turmoil tends not to boost local equity markets and, we imagine, generally would make affected shares go down in price. Here the problem might instead be that the holder of the short position can’t close out, despite desperately wanting to.

In either case, the dealer’s attitude is likely to be the same: “I can’t see a bid-ask to do what I need to do to [keep a long position going/close a short position out] (delete as applicable). If you can find me such a bid or ask I can trade on I will, but if not, I regret to say you may get bupkis.”

Now the nature of geopolitical events is to be unpredictable. They may manifest themselves in different and unexpected ways, so — while no-one likes to rag on ISDA’s crack drafting squad™ more than the JC does, readers, you know that — you can’t really blame the ’squad for not setting out the myriad of unintended knock-on consequences there might be to your equity derivative portfolio as a result of an unwarranted military incursion in the Urals.

Talk to your clients

That said, it is all about managing expectations. The other typical characteristic of geopolitical hanky-panky is that it rarely comes out of the blue: it brews, there is posturing, brinkspersonship, manoeuvering before anything happens. This is a good time to get out and talk to your clients. Remember the name of the game is to manage client expectations: a client who didn’t know it had some risk, even though it should have known (or, in fact did know but in a moment of motivated irrationality had conveniently forgotten) is more likely to be upset when that risk materialises than one who did know, because you reminded it. Your goal, remember, is not to win litigation with your customers, but avoid it.

Section 12.8(b) “Means of determination”

What to make of that loaded expression commercially reasonable? A good place to look is Barclays v Unicredit, which considered what a party must do if it is required to act “in a commercially reasonable manner”. Basically it is sensible and solemn and workable — you are entitled to consider your own book, your own models and your own axes, and can’t be second guessed by some appeal to the hypothetical.

As a corrective to any irrationally giddy feelings of happiness this may induce, see also Crowther v Arbuthnot Latham & Co Ltd — yes, you can legitimately consider your own risk situation, and you are best placed to judge it, but all the same this is not a licence to do what the hell you like.

If a discretion is designed for one purpose, you can’t use it, to the exclusion of that purpose, to achieve another.

Wise words.

Section 12.8(c) “Determination”

From the “I never said you couldn’t” school of drafting. When acting in a commercially reasonable manner, the Calculation Agent may can consider dealer quotes, market data and its internal models. Glory be.

Section 12.8(d) “Quotations”

If, having gone out and got some dealer quotations or market data for the purpose of determining the Cancellation Amount, the Calculation Agent doesn’t like what it got, it has to use it unless with a straight face it can say to do so would be to produce some manifestly erroneous outcome. This keeps the Calculation Agent — which will be one of the parties, remember; usually the dealer — honest (if its regulatory obligations to treat customers fairly, not be a dork and so on, doesn’t).

Section 12.8(e) “Liquidation of hedges”

This makes it clear that on a Hedging Disruption, for example, the Determining Party can pass on at least the market risk of replacing any disrupted hedge (and probably the credit risk too, though where the hedge is a cash trade settling DVP there would be no credit exposure).

Section 12.8(f) (Determining Party)

We have a whole page dedicated to the Determining Party.

Section 12.8(g) “Commercially reasonable procedures”

Not a lot to say here other than in defining “commercially reasonable procedures” the definitions — inadvertently, since they predate it — provide a gloss over the common law understanding of the expression, as fabulously articulated in Barclays v Unicredit. But, in truth, not much of one.